Software development has experienced a seismic shift in recent years, with open source becoming the heartbeat of innovation. A full 90% of enterprise IT leaders say their organization is using open source, according to a Red Hat report. Leading this transformation is GitHub, the ubiquitous platform that not only jumpstarted the open source movement but has also been quietly transforming how enterprises approach development at large.

But it’s not just tech companies trumpeting the open source creed—academics are on board, too. A paper recently published by the University of Georgia found a hard-to-dismiss correlation between open source innovation and overall business success. “We find a significantly positive association between GitHub activity and future realized net income, suggesting that open innovation is a strong predictor of future earnings,” according to the report.

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I recently met with Chris Reddington, senior manager of developer advocacy at GitHub, to dive into how and why open source is becoming essential for enterprise innovation. According to Reddington, the once-dominant proprietary information mindset is shifting, with open source cultural principles now permeating most companies, a practice also known as innersource. Put simply, open source is now cool in the enterprise.

Bridging the Open Source-Enterprise Divide

GitHub’s close ties to the open source space have allowed them to illuminate the parallels between the open source and enterprise worlds. Reddington noted that, nowadays, open source and enterprise aren’t really separate communities but rather intertwined facets of the same software ecosystem. This movement is represented by the open source program office (OSPO) becoming more commonplace in large organizations.

For an example of innersource in practice, take Porsche, who recently announced the Porsche FOSS Movement to guide internal common values and development principles around open source. We’ve also seen similar large-scale commitments to open source values at Walmart, Spotify, Facebook and others.

Open source clearly isn’t just for startups—large companies are increasingly seeing an advantage in both using open source software and sharing their own open source components. The growing investment and maturation of OSS initiatives are positive strides, as it’s important to the stability of the free open source software (FOSS) ecosystem as a whole that those using software contribute back to its maintenance, especially to core packages the world depends upon.

The Power of Innersource

The study from the University of Georgia brings to light how enterprises increasingly recognize the need to work in sync with their developers and customers to remain competitive. This is a testament to the evolving nature of development—an industry that’s embracing a “team sport” mentality instead of a siloed approach, explained Reddington. And as enterprises align with open source principles, they are discovering the power of innersource, he said. “Innersource is a development methodology where engineers build proprietary software using best practices from large-scale open source projects, like Kubernetes or Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code,” GitHub explained.

Reddington elaborated on two key elements of this approach:

• Breaking down silos: The traditional organization-centric structure of projects is being replaced by a more transparent and collaborative approach. Innersource encourages transparency and asynchronous communication, tearing down barriers that previously inhibited efficient collaboration.
• Engaging responsibly: Reddington emphasized the significance of enterprises giving back to the open source community. Whether through sponsorships, allocating time for engineers to contribute, or open sourcing their projects, companies can foster symbiotic relationships where they benefit from and contribute to the open source realm.

Essentially, by adopting innersource principles, enterprises foster an environment that promotes collaboration and knowledge sharing, thus enabling innovation to flourish across teams and projects.

Balancing Open Innovation and Proprietary Software

One of the most intriguing aspects of this transformation is finding the equilibrium between open innovation and proprietary software. Reddington acknowledged the necessity for businesses to generate profits, which inherently stems from delivering value.

While reinventing the wheel may be tempting, Reddington highlighted the importance of recognizing existing solutions and incorporating them into ongoing projects. This pragmatic approach maximizes efficiency and enables teams to focus on the unique, value-generating aspects of their work.

Organizations should also consider what software of their own could be open sourced. From a business perspective, this most likely won’t be the “crown jewels,” said Reddington, but ancillary components that others could benefit from. For example, had it not been for Google open sourcing Kubernetes, Lyft open sourcing Envoy Proxy or Facebook sharing GraphQL, we would not have these standard components for all to use.

Open Source Movements: Past, Present, and Future

Over the last decade, we’ve seen significant, more institutional maturation around open source projects. Reddington pointed to the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) as a standout. He specifically noted Kubernetes-based Event Driven Autoscaler (KEDA) as a cool project to help scale Kubernetes containers based on the number of events needing to be processed.

He also underscored the surge of interest in generative AI, evidenced by projects like GitHub Copilot. It will be curious to see how AI assistants incorporate open source at their core, such as open foundational models and community-supported datasets.

Potential Setbacks To The Open Source and Innersource Movement

In the dynamic realm of enterprise-scale software development, nurturing innovation can be a complex endeavor. Innersource principles are one way to change the attitude toward development, making it more efficient, collaborative and aligned to the current and future developer experience expectations.

Yet, this isn’t to say we haven’t had some setbacks recently that could threaten the progress the OSS community has built. For example, HashiCorp recently abandoned its open source license around Terraform in favor of a business source license (BSL). There is also an increasing number of supply chain-related attacks that threaten common open source libraries.

Gazing Into the Future

As Reddington aptly summarized, we’re still in the early days of this transformative journey. The developer community’s inclination for experimentation will undoubtedly drive the solutions to the most pressing challenges in open source. And with enterprise adoption on the rise, the future promises more cohesive collaboration, broader adoption of innersource principles and continued innovation driven by open source values.

Interestingly, we’re seeing more synergy between open source and enterprise domains, which used to feel like separate realms entirely. And it will be interesting to see how businesses continue to balance transparency and proprietary value into the future. No matter what, the lines between them are blurring, enabling companies to harness the power of innersource for enhanced collaboration and innovation.